I’ve had a few people email and IM me saying my post earlier today came across really defensively and that I missed the point.

First, they say that all bloggers deserve to earn more. I completely agree. It’s one of the reasons you’ll be seeing us aggressively phase out AdSense this year (unless AdSense does some kind of major change).

Second, they say most ad programs available to most bloggers don’t pay enough. Again, I completely agree. About the only program out there that I really applaud for raising how much bloggers can earn is Text Link Ads (no affiliate link). These guys took something that was already selling well, and centralized it so bloggers could earn more money with less work. Gotta love that.

Third, they say that most bloggers could make more if they put in more time and used the resources available out there (on sites like Problogger.net). Again, I agree. If a blogger works their butts off, they can easily earn a fantastic income.

Fourth, they say that the criticism of the blog network industry is that things are slow to change. I agree.Gawker and WIN, while both fantastic networks haven’t done a lot to innovate. In fact, most networks generally follow their model of content + bloggers=cash. Instablogs and 9rules are two networks doing some great new things (to be fair, 9rules would say they aren’t a blog network… I’m not saying they are, but they’re in the same neighborhood and not acknowledging the cool stuff they’re doing that blog networks *should* emulate wouldn’t be fair).

Did I get my panties in a twist this week? Sure. Mainly because 1) I believe that the blog media industry is doing a fantastic job growing its reach, revenue and in serving its readers and 2) because while we were slow to innovate last year, we’ve done a tonne this year already to push things forward.

Basically, I got defensive and took things personally when I shouldn’t have.

If your critiques are in the above 4, then you’re right.

Effectively, I’d boil this down to: damnit, bloggers as a whole need to earn more money. And damnit, I wish there was a better way to monetize both smaller blogs (think Text Link Ads, but for display ads – easier to do, more money, less intrusive) as well as for larger blogs (the number of blogs with 500K-2M pageviews/month who are earning less than 1500$ is mind blowing).

Was I defensive? Sure. Are the above 4-5 critiques accurate? Sure. Does b5 deserve to be criticized when we fuck up? Of course. It’s probably just that this hit on 2 of my biggest pet peeves: people who criticize without offering a solution, and people who criticize as fact instead of opinion.

My bad on taking it personally. The discussion on paying bloggers more is an important one. Our new pay structure is a big first step in that direction. But it is just a first step.